Drones will be flying over the USA, and the Federal Aviation Administration is currently preparing to handle this new type of air traffic with fewer operational air traffic control towers.
Many small airports will lose their towers and controllers soon due to the efforts of the Feds to reduce costs and lower the national debt.
But that is only the tip of the airship, so to speak, as we consider the very real tendency toward reduced fares in commercial air travel.

The tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., prompted many, if not most, schools systems across the country to re-evaluate their safety plans.
It also has prompted calls from some — including people in Roane County — to dedicate a school resource officer at every school.
Resource is a key word here. If resources were no object, it would be fine to assign an officer to every one of Roane County’s 17 elementary, middle and high schools.
We could be even safer and assign an officer to each and every classroom.

“...until death do us part.” Then the invitation to, oops ­— “You may kiss ... each other?”
Ah yes, so romantic and final!
But at most only 50 percent of marriages in the USA last that long for a multitude of reasons.
And now we are engaged in a moral struggle with ourselves that challenges an accepted societal norm that has lasted for over two thousand years.
Suddenly society is being asked to accept “same sex” unions of both sexes and trans-gender couples as marriages, a state prescribed in the Bible.

Recently, a reader commented that it might be less expensive to taxpayers to just bail out nonviolent inmates at the county jail rather than pay for food, medical care, lodging and security to hold them for weeks on end.
We can sympathize.
Often times, it feels like law-abiding, taxpayers are the real people getting punished when it comes to the costs of building and maintaining jails.
We are glad county officials are willing to look more closely at alternatives to lengthy incarcerations.

By LEE HAMILTON
Center on Congress
Wherever you stood on Sen. Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster to delay John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director, or on the Senate’s confirmation hearings for Brennan and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, they all serve as a reminder of just how feeble Congress has proven to be when it comes to foreign policy.